My arm: A political device?

I've given far too many drunken informal interviews to people who had no idea what they were getting into when they ask what happened to my arm. Sometimes I lie, and tell stories about fighting bears, or crazy ex-girlfriends and their mothers, or the consensus is that no story compares to the real according to Hoyle truth. There's just no two ways about it: You can't beat getting shot by your best friend.
Most people have the same reaction when they hear the story, moving from disbelief, to being astonished, to sad, to speechless, to hopeful. I'm more than used to it, I'm numb to it. You can imagine my surprise when I heard someone with an almost elated response upon hearing the story then. He wasn't excited that I was alive, he wasn't really that excited that I could still be friends with Michael, what he was excited about was the prospect of using my story to advocate for stronger gun control.
He wanted to interview me again, formally and sober.
He just agreed to a position working with Patty Murray in Washington DC. Sometimes I wish I had just told people it was a skateboarding accident that night.

Pipe Dreams

I've had a lot of pipe dreams in my life. When I was in high school, for some time I wanted to live in a VW bus and eat pancakes every day. This isn't the kind of stuff I could lie about, I'm not making this up. Most of my dreams these days have something to do with being a productive member of society, but on my own terms, rather than just being a self-important bum.
One of those reoccurring dreams I've had recently involves owning an awesome bar that people could come to in order to eat, drink and be merry. There would be shuffle board, and domestic drafts, and darts, pool, flat screen TVs, and gin fizz. Recently, thinking about something else the bar would need worried me a little bit: Employees.
What worries me about employees is that ultimately, I would have to hire people like myself. They would hate their boss, they would not really care about the job, and most likely, they'd want to own their own awesome bar. They'd want their bar, not mine, to be the place where people go to eat, and drink, and be merry.
I was at a bar just the other day, and had some of the worst service ever. The waiter was drunker than I was, he was writing orders down on bubble gum wrappers, and he was bringing out way too many cheeseburgers, and nowhere near enough water, or ketchup for that matter. I'm actually pretty confidant that he was functionally retarded at that point.
My friend Justen had an idea that would remove the thinking from these ever demanding service jobs that bars rely on to turn a profit. Just have customers write down their own orders, so that they don't have to put their faith in the hands of a gut who's not smart enough to just take two aspirin and call-in in the morning.

Having been an accomplice to many,
A messy break-up,
I still ask myself,
"What role shall I play?"

And I answer myself,
As is always the case,
that my role,
Is that of the spoiler.

Trying to make this second,
This minute measure,
Seem more like what it it,
A tiny piece of infinity.

To observe what makes this infinity,
different than another,
But I know from my last infinity,
Exactly what comes next.

Clear Distinctions

I found a way to make a clearer distinction between things on Youtube and things for this Blog, now, I'm going to use youtube to converse with Michael via collaborative vlog, ala the vlogbrothers. Imagine something like bromance, but less dramatic, and with more instances of stop motion.

Teach for Something

I made a plan about a year and a half ago for what at the time would be the next five years of my life. I'm down to the last three and a half years of that plan, and the finance sector of the Economy might have thrown a giant wrench in it. I've wanted to sign up to Teach for America, and use that as a stepping stone to further education,or a career as a teacher, but I'm worried that due to the unavailability of funding Teach for America's scope might be decreased, and admissions might become more competitive. I see myself as being a borderline candidate, overall, and I don't know what I'll do if this doesn't work out. Maybe I'll make movies, or something.

White Power

"Working at a University, as a tenured professor, sometimes it's difficult for me to feel as myself, being a white supremacist surrounded by all these intellectuals."

This is a real live quote taken from a real live whit supremacist forum. It's irony is as thick and juicy as a New York Steak.

Tweet

My friend recently insisted that I get a twitter account, so I did thinking that I'd never use it, and basically just forget about it after a week or something. This turned out not to be the case, as Facebook has a twitter application, and now I can update my status with text messages. Needless to say, this convenient marriage of two of my favorite past times (texting and updating my facebook status) has had a negative impact on my productivity, and on my ability to separate myself from the internet. I'n totally fine with these developments.

Just in: Republican Governers retarded

In a USA today story, 4 Republican Governors give retarded quotes implying that they think a fiscal stimulus is a bad idea, despite rampant short falls in state budgets. Republicans are considering refusal of stimulus money for states because they're worried that once federal money "runs out" these new programs will be unsustainable. The Stimulus money is not designated for new programs though, it's designated for programs which have been proven to be sustainable in an economy which is operating near potential (which ours currently isn't).

Dilemma

I have something of a dilemma. I just opened a youtube account for the express purpose of recording moving images of myself for people all over the world to look at, and listen to. I intend to talk about things which by some grand measure are mundane, but that's largely what I already do here. There may be some features of this narcissism which lend themselves to the written word, a and others which lend themselves to visual and audible communication though, so I feel that the confluence of these to media may simply be the greatest gift I've ever given my ego.

Let's hope this works.

Winter

Winter is upon us. Fall quarter is over, and I'm terribly tired.

336

Today is the 336th days of the year, which means that if it weren't a leap year, I'd be 21 right now. Actually, if scientists hadn't realized we were losing days and introduced leap-years I would have been 21 4 days ago.

Two Schools of Thought

Two friends with more experience than I myself have with alcohol have each proposed differing views on the best method of alcohol consumption.

"The answer is always malt liquor, preferably with energy drink mixed in."
-Lindsey Grad

"The tower of beer... It was more than enough, and it didn't contain anything cheap."
-Paul Fillmore

The take away point from these arguments is that whatever the best alcohol is, it isn't Vodka.

This is how we do